Today on the blog I have a guest. I would like to introduce you to Gloria who manages the site SpeakIta For Fun. In her words she explains a bit about her objective with her site and how she can help students learn Italian. I think her advice is great for beginners and advanced students. In her own words she says: I am an Italian online teacher. I help the more fearful beginners learn Italian fearlessly and playfully.

Ecco Gloria. Here’s Gloria…

“L’italiano è difficile, è proprio da pazzi, è impossibile”.

“Italian is difficult, it’s just crazy, it’s impossible”.

Se avessi un centesimo per ogni volta che ho sentito questa frase…If I had a penny for every time I heard this sentence….

Before being a language teacher, I was a language student, and most importantly, I consider myself a language freak. This means that I never miss an opportunity to learn something new in a new language. And the moment came when I decided to try and learn German.

Everything seemed so confusing to me and, to make it even worse, I’m one of those people who wants to know everything and now. So imagine a crazy woman trying to learn a difficult and unfamiliar language in the shortest possible time. I’m ready to bet I looked like this:

The truth is, we take this advice for granted. We know we’re supposed to learn a language gradually but we just forget about it. It might be because we’re can’t wait to speak it with someone, or it might be because we’re so enthusiastic about it and we want to know more and more… and more. What happens when we don’t take small steps is that we try to learn something new every day, we get obsessed by adding more and more to our knowledge… and our brain explodes.

Setting small goals, possibly not on a daily basis, and taking your time to reach them is one of the keys to effective language learning. Remember what Italians say: chi va piano va sano e va lontano (He who goes slowly, goes safely and goes far).

#1 If you come across a new word in Italian, or any other foreign language, a good way to find out its meaning is by googling it. You don’t know what “albero” means? Try and type it on Google images and look at the results. Of course, this method can work only with concrete words.

#2 If you want to know how to say a certain word in Italian… you have to open the dictionary 😉 No, I’m not making fun of you. Open the dictionary, look up the word in Italian, than go and create a flashcard by matching a picture with the Italian definition. You can make them with PowerPoint, print them, keep them on your computer… or use tools like Quizlet.

Just speak! You’ve learned the alphabet? Great! Say it out loud. You’ve learned the greeting? Fantastic! Repeat them loudly. You don’t have to know everything before you “make your first sounds”. Speaking is key to build up confidence, especially if you’re self-conscious about your pronunciation. Practice, practice, practice. Repeat as much as you want.

If you prefer to wait and feel like it’s not the right time for you to speak, just wait. Force it won’t certainly help you. What you can do instead, is to listen to some Italian to become familiar with words and sounds and be able to produce them eventually. Everything comes with time, and I’m sure that when you’re ready you will make such great steps towards speaking Italian.

Generally speaking, we feel like we’re not ready to listen to Italian, or any other foreign language, because we’re “just a beginner”. We believe listening is for more advanced learners and we know for sure we won’t be able to catch the meaning of everything.

Luckily, the internet has got many options for us, YouTube being one of them. If you want to listen to some natural Italian, you can watch any video you like about a topic you want to know about… and watch that video in slow motion. Decreasing the video speed will also decrease the audio speed. As a result, it won’t be too daunting for you and you will be able to listen to some natural Italian at your pace.

Look for any possible way to include Italian in your daily life. Do you know of any Italian person living around you? Fantastic! Why don’t you try and greet them in Italian? Are you cooking? What are your ingredients called in Italian? Are you watching two people talking? What would they say in Italian? As you can see, there are plenty of ways. Can you think of some more?